Dr. Carlos Cañete (CCHS/CSIC, Madrid) will give a a talk on:
“Early Modern Cultural Contacts and the Pre-Adamite Theory”
Pre-Adamism has been considered as “the real spectre haunting Western thought”. The idea that there were humans before Adam had a great impact on all branches of knowledge and experience after it was suggested by Isaac la Peyrère in mid-seventeenth century. But that theory itself was the result of a previous impact produced by the cultural contacts which took place in the preceding period. This paper will address those cultural contacts, exploring the mechanisms that ultimately led to the paradigm shift of the pre-adamite theory.
Carlos Cañete is ‘Juan de la Cierva’ Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC) and lecturer of the MA in Arabic and Islamic Studies of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Málaga (Spain). He has previously worked at the School of Arabic Studies (CSIC) from 2006 to 2008 and has conducted research in Morocco at the Mohammed V University in Rabat funded by the Spanish Government (2004-2006). He has been a member of the project ‘Material Connections: Mobility, Materiality and Mediterranean Identities’ led by Peter van Dommelen (Brown University) and A. Bernard Knapp (University of Glasgow). Since 2007 he is a member of the research project concerning 17th century Jesuit missions in Ethiopia led by Víctor M. Fernández (UCM). He is also a member of the ERC funded project ‘Conversion, Overlapping Religiosities, Polemics, Interaction. Early Modern Iberia and Beyond’ (CORPI) led by Mercedes García-Arenal (CSIC). He is currently coordinator of the permanent seminar of the Group of Arabic Studies (CSIC). His research focuses on the historiography of cultural representations of Africa and the Mediterranean, the intellectual history of debates concerning human origins, orientalist discourse and postcolonial theory.
Contact Information: pmt2114@columbia.edu
Pier Mattia Tommasino
Assistant Professor of Italian and Mediterranean Studies
Department of Italian
